How hard is the water in New Kent County, VA?

0.8 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in New Kent County, VA is 14 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 0.8 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 27 samples at 25 sites between 1990 and 2023, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 0.5 and 1.8 gpg. The whole middle of that range gives the same answer, so a test of your own tap is unlikely to change it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

You can skip the softener. At 0.8 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in New Kent County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.1 to 8.4 gpg

The softest single sample on record in New Kent County was 1.2 mg/L and the hardest 144.5 mg/L, a 120-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 1.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.5 gpg.

Wells 0.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 1.6 gpg

27 groundwater samples from 25 wells put the median at 14.2 mg/L. 516 surface samples from 28 sites put it at 27.7 mg/L. In New Kent County the rivers and lakes come out 0.8 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.

New Kent County against the rest of Virginia

Among the 126 Virginia counties with data, New Kent County is number 120 of 126 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 5% of counties.

Softest in Virginia: Isle of Wight County at 0.4 gpg. Hardest: Clarke County at 20.1 gpg. Closest to New Kent County: Gloucester County (0.8), Rappahannock County (0.8), Franklin city (0.8).